Whatever It Takes (Stonewall Investigations Blue Creek 3)

“How so?” I prodded. This seemed like a potential gold mine of information.

“He was a deadbeat. Couldn’t hold down a job for long, was more interested in whatever he wanted to do than in making her happy. She wasn’t his top priority, even though that girl deserves to be someone’s number one. It was hard to watch. I tried talking to her about it one day, but she shut it down.” He gave a helpless shrug and stood. “She’s got a chance now, though.”

I cocked my head at that. Interesting. Did we just stumble upon a motive? It would only explain Lionel’s death and not any of the other Pegasus murders, but still, a lead was a lead. “Did you and Lionel ever fight?” I asked, keeping my tone as bland as possible, making it seem more like a throwaway question rather than a stake to the heart.

“Me and Lionel? Nah, just argued over DnD stuff but never about anything serious. I knew it wasn’t my place to interfere in the relationship. It was just hard to watch, that’s all.”

I put a mental flag up in the air. Marco would need more looking into, and judging by Matt’s intense gaze drilling directly through the guy, he must be thinking the same thing. For now, I could tell our time here was up. Marco’s defenses were raised as he pointed us to the door.

“Need anything else?”

“No, I think we’ve got what we need,” Matt said. “Thank you.”

“Sure, no problem.” Marco walked with us to the door. “So you guys are like profilers or something?”

“FBI doesn’t have profilers. That’s a Hollywood thing,” Matt explained. This was always one of his pet peeves, one he loved to correct. “Check the website if you don’t believe me. I’m a behavioral analyst—that’s probably the closest thing to what you’re thinking of.”

“You’ve been analyzing my behavior this entire time?” Marco suddenly looked nervous, wrinkles appearing across his forehead as his eyebrows rose halfway up to his receding hairline. I didn’t need the years of experience Matt had to see that Marco may have just shit a brick.

“Since I stepped into the house,” Matthew answered with a cockiness that almost made me grin. Marco, on the other hand, looked like he was about to start crying.

“How’d you and Sammy meet?” I asked, deciding I could still dig a little deeper.

“We, uh, knew each other in college. We were on the same premed track—which clearly didn’t pan out for either of us. When I needed a roommate, I posted about it online, and she answered. She moved in two years ago, I think.” Marco crossed his arms against his chest, his eyes dropping down to his feet. Matt and I shared a look. Something was up with this guy, but what? Did he just have strong feelings for Sammy, or was something more sinister going on here? Sometimes, the scariest monsters hid out in plain sight, only peeling off their mask behind a locked door or in the depths of a dark forest, when no one else but them and their victim were around to witness the horror. I also learned through all my years of investigations that love—especially misplaced love—was the biggest fodder for the most bloodthirsty demons.

“There’s something else you need to know before you go…”

Was Marco about to confess? Was he about to pull off the mask and show us the monstrous face underneath? Silence filled the room like an invisible tide, rising and rising and rising. We gave Marco the time he needed to drum up his confession, my heart beginning to beat a little faster.

“Sammy wasn’t the only one who was cheating.”

That made Matt and I go “huh” in unison, neither of us expecting that to be his big reveal.

10

MATTHEW HALE

“Huh?” Jason asked, clearly as surprised as I was. Marco stood there with his beard being pressed between his fingers. I read him as being nervous about something, everything about him radiating a suspicious energy. The way he had sat, curled inward with his arms shielding him, eyes pinned to the floor, it appeared to me that he didn’t want to give any indication of his true intentions.

I was apparently wrong. He was just looking for the right time to drop a bomb.

“I heard him one night,” he began to explain. “Talking on the phone, when Sammy was at work and he thought no one was home. It was obvious—he didn’t do shit to hide it. He had some phone sex and promised the guy they’d see each other soon.”

My eyebrow arched as surprise flashed across my face. “A guy? Cheating on Sammy?”

“Lionel was bi,” Marco said. “Both of them are.”

“And you never told Sammy?” I asked.

Marco shook his head and picked some lint off his faded shirt. “No. All I want to do is protect her, not hurt her. I knew it would ruin her.”